


'Til I Find a Place

by shiningartifact



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diners, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:59:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiningartifact/pseuds/shiningartifact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard had finally done what he had to do. He'd gotten out of the basement, and now he had a booth to himself at the Blue Moon Diner, where he could sit and drink coffee all night and calm his jittery hands enough to draw. It was perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til I Find a Place

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [no_tags 2013 challenge](http://no-tags.dreamwidth.org/) for prompt #33, Frank/Gerard - diner. Also posted at the comm [here](http://no-tags.dreamwidth.org/9827.html). SO much thanks to my wonderful beta [brooklinegirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklinegirl). This story would not have happened without her invaluable input and support and I love her a LOT. ♥
> 
> This story has been translated into Russian! You can find the translation [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/3762681). Thanks so much to [captainstefan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/captainstefan/pseuds/captainstefan)!

*****

Gerard's coffee is cold. Again. He keeps putting it down to sketch and forgetting to pick it back up. He grabs the mug and downs the cold coffee, wrinkling his nose as he swallows the super-sweet dregs at the bottom of the cup. He puts it down and looks around, a corner of his mouth turned up. Fuck yeah, this could work.

He needs to be somewhere that's not home, where his parents and grandparents aren't giving him that look all the time — the one that says "what are you doing with your life" and "we expect more". He needs somewhere to go, where the silence isn't pressing in on him from all directions. Where he can actually see the daylight sometimes. Where Mikey's absence doesn't make him sad. Where everything he sees doesn't remind him of Jennifer.

"More coffee, hon?" The waitress — Myra, according to her name tag — swoops from table to table, deftly filling cups as she goes. He nods and slides his mug closer to the edge of the table. She hesitates with the coffeepot poised over the cup. "Was it regular or decaf, sweetie?"

"Reg—" he coughs, realizing he hasn't actually spoken to anyone for hours. "Regular, please," he says, smiling up at her. She fills the cup and moves on, stopping three tables down to serve the guy with the burgundy track-suit and shock of white hair who has been double-fisting coffee for the past four hours.

Gerard already has a name for that dude — Jimmy Two-Cups — and the lady two tables to his right with the frizzy dye job who mutters to herself while eating a bowl of dry corn flakes — one flake at a time. He can't decide between Lady of the Flake and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, but he figures it's only a matter of time before one of them will win out.

He accidentally catches Alice's eye and quickly averts his gaze to a random spot behind the counter. There's a guy working the grill and Myra is just settling the coffeepots back in their place. He refocuses on his sketchbook, sitting open in front of him. He's actually making progress for the first time since Jennifer dumped him and he began The Great Wallow of 2000.

It's been three months since she told him she needed to move on with her life and how she loved him, she really did, but he was miserable and it was toxic. He has the whole speech memorized by now. He's replayed it enough times in his head. She'd sat there on his bed — the bed where he'd gone down on her just _the day before_ and made her come so hard his whole face was wet — and told him that she needed more. Someone with direction. Someone with a future.

And the thing was, he couldn't argue. He'd wanted to, but she was fucking right. He'd left college with dreams and plans and ended up in an office making copies for a living. All day. Every day. Copying and distributing other people's art for his bosses to approve. He was so tired at the end of every day that he just came home and crashed, and the weekends he'd spent with Jennifer or Mikey, and just like that, there had been no time to work on a portfolio, to create.

So now that Jennifer was gone and Mikey was spending the weekends with his girlfriend in the city, going to shows and having a life, Gerard had finally done what he had to do. He'd gotten out of the house. And now he had a booth to himself at the Blue Moon Diner, where he could sit and drink coffee all night and calm his jittery hands enough to draw. It was perfect.

*****

The door of the restaurant crashes open and Gerard looks up from his book to see a skinny kid with a bright orange mohawk and tattoos spotted down his bare arms speed in and head straight for the back hallway. "Hey Tony sorry I'm late show ran over be right out!" His voice echoes down the hall in his wake, the words running together. Everything about him is fast fast fast.

Gerard concentrates on his work again as Myra stops by and tops off his coffee without asking. He grins up at her and she winks back before gliding off to fill Jimmy's cups next. Everything about the Blue Moon late on Friday and Saturday nights makes Gerard feel happy and safe. Jimmy Two-Cups is there every time Gerard comes through the door and slides into his booth. Alice the Flake Lady shows up most Saturdays too, and Gerard loves his place as one of the weirdo regulars. He can see himself in the mirror behind the counter if he bothers to look up — his hair is black with a few uneven streaks of red and pretty much always a mess. His clothes — always black — are rarely clean, but he does try to hide the stains by wearing them inside-out when he can.

Mohawk-kid bangs out of the hallway and slips behind the counter. Gerard stops ogling himself in the mirror and slides his gaze a little to the right. The kid is wearing a white half-apron, the ties doubled around his waist. His back is turned and Gerard can see a studded belt peeking out from under the white cloth.

Gerard spends the rest of the night getting very little drawing done. He keeps ducking his head so that his hair flops down over one eye and he can stare at mohawk-dude with abandon. He's got piercings, and there's some kind of red string around his wrist, and he's wearing a faded blue T-shirt that's a size too small and says "Captain Friendly's Juggernaut!" on it in big purple script. Gerard finds himself wanting to know what the fuck that means. Does the kid even know? Did he pick it up at a thrift store? Why the red string? Is he a Buddhist? Or no, wait. A different religion. That one Madonna is doing right now. Huh. This kid doesn't really look like he'd be into the same shit that Madonna's into. Gerard chews on his pen, thinking, and then realizes that the fucking cap is still off and he now probably has a huge black mark on his lip.

He's rubbing his bottom lip frantically with his thumb and rifling through his bag with the other hand looking for a pocket mirror when someone says, "You done?"

Gerard freezes, thumb still on his mouth, and slowly looks over and up. Mohawk-dude. Of fucking _course_. Gerard just stares at him, and the kid raises his eyebrows and gestures at Gerard's empty plate.

"Can I take this?" He's smiling a little, a small silver ring in his lip, and holy fuck he is _gorgeous_. Like, way prettier than David Bowie, and Gerard hadn't known that dudes could _get_ prettier than that. Gerard drags his gaze down the dude's arm to the string. But there is no string — it's a tattoo, a ring of words in red script that circles his wrist. Gerard suddenly has the overwhelming urge to taste it.

He shakes his head, trying to clear it, and remembers the pen incident. He looks down at the table. "No. I mean, no, yes. I'm done. You can. I mean. I'm finished." He rolls his eyes, still gazing at the pale yellow Formica. There's a chip just to his right that someone has colored in with a green marker. He stares at that until he sees the plate lift off the table out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh my God. What the _fuck_ , Gerard," he mutters to himself. He dares a glance up, but mohawk dude is nowhere to be seen. Alice is there, though, in his field of vision. She points at her mouth and nods her head at him.

"You've got something. Right here," she says, and then her eyes fall back to the bowl in front of her and she fishes out another piece of cereal.

Gerard can feel the heat flare in his cheeks and he knows he must look like a tomato — his face always goes maximum red when he's embarrassed. He fishes a ten out of his pocket and throws it on the table while he gathers his things, and when he doesn't think about the kid again until he's halfway across the parking lot, he figures he's doing pretty well.

*****

It's Sunday night, and Gerard's regular spot is taken when he arrives at the Blue Moon. He stands in the middle of the aisle between the tables and the counter, staring dumbly at the couple in his booth. Dolores, the other waitress, who reminds him so forcibly of his mom that he has to do a double-take sometimes when he sees her bleach-blonde hair and bright lipstick out of the corner of his eye, comes up behind him and says, "Sit wherever you want, honey, but you gotta sit. We're busy tonight and we need the floor."

He turns toward the counter and takes the closest stool like he's on autopilot. Fuck, he hates sitting at the counter. You can't put your back to the wall and stretch out like you can in a booth. Also, it's awkward and there's nowhere to put your stuff and there are people behind you. What if they look at your butt? Gerard doesn't want people looking at his butt. He keeps that shit under wraps.

He orders coffee and a slice of pie and watches the action behind the counter until he gets distracted by his reflection in the mirror across from him. He'd spent about thirty minutes scrubbing at the pen mark on his lip last night, and the fucking thing had faded but was still there, a light grey stain on his mouth.

None of the other regulars are in yet tonight. It's Sunday, and Gerard usually has to at least try to get some sleep so he can wake up at the buttcrack of dawn and trudge his ass down to the ferry terminal to get into the city. And yet, he's sitting at the freaking counter at the Blue Moon on a Sunday night. Whatever, he's just here to try to get some work done, and not at all in the hopes of seeing mohawk-guy again, this time without looking and acting like an escaped mental patient.

His initial inspection of the restaurant turns up only the owner, Tony, and the two waitresses — no orange hair or tattoos in sight. He sighs and opens his sketch book on the counter next to his coffee and starts working on his next panel.

*****

Six hours later, Gerard is concentrating on shading around his hero's face, his eyebrows drawn together and bottom lip in his teeth. It's almost three-thirty in the morning, and it's officially the latest he's ever stayed at the Blue Moon. He's outlasted Two-Cups, and even Alice has come and gone. He's on a roll, and he doesn't want to stop for anything — not even the absolute certainty that he's going to be a fucking zombie tomorrow at work.

And not even for mohawk-guy, who'd sailed in at two-fifteen and shouted, "Tooooony! Our gig was amazing, dude! Sorry I'm late. I'll start cleaning up in a sec okay!"

Gerard had stared after him for long moment but had gone back to working. Finishing this page was more important than boys, dammit.

That is, of course, until the boy in question stops in front of his spot at the counter. "Hey, did you want anything to eat?"

Gerard finishes his line and then looks up. It's mohawk-guy. Which— 

"What's your name?" he blurts out without thinking. And, fuck. The dude's (perfectly arched — like seriously, they're Marlene Dietrich-level perfect) eyebrows draw together for a second before he smiles wide, showing his teeth.

"It's Frank. Are you—" He bends closer to peer at Gerard's chest, and Gerard draws back automatically, nearly losing his balance on the stool. He flails, grabbing the counter and almost pulling his sketchbook onto the floor. Frank steps back, one side of his mouth quirking up a bit. "Sorry, dude. I was just trying to read your name."

He points at Gerard's chest, and oh, right. Gerard is wearing the button-down he'd bought at Global Thrift last week, with 'Gus' sewn onto the chest pocket in red thread. He'd thought it was awesome at the time, but now it just seems stupid.

"Oh. Uh, no. My name's Gerard." He gestures awkwardly at his own chest. "This is just. A shirt." He huffs out a breath. His heart is beating stupidly fast. When did he forget how to speak to humans? "It's not mine."

Frank grins even wider at that. "Boyfriend?" He waits a second, as though for an answer, but Gerard can't actually breathe right now, let alone speak. Did Frank just assume that he had a boyfriend? Just, _what_?

Frank holds up the guest check pad. "Did you want anything? We're going to close down the grill in a minute to clean it for the night, so speak now or forever hold your peace." He grins again, and Gerard is hit once more by how fucking beautiful he is. He's young, but not that much younger than Gerard, he thinks, and his face is so open and bright. He makes Gerard want to smile — makes him want to be better at, well, talking. To people. For starters.

"Oh, um." Gerard puts his arm up on the counter and immediately slides his sketchbook into his nearly-full coffee mug, spilling coffee on the corner of the book. "Shit. Shit!" He grabs at the napkin dispenser but they're wedged in so tight he can't get anything out. He ends up dabbing at the stain with the cuff of his Gus shirt.

Frank turns around and pulls a clean, dry towel off of a hook. "Here," he says, and hands it over.

Gerard takes it from him and ruffles the pages, trying to see how far in the stains go. It doesn't seem so bad. He forgets about Frank until he's satisfied that all of the extra coffee is mopped up.

When he finally looks up, Frank is still there, watching him. "Is your book okay?" He takes back the towel, and Gerard focuses on his tattoo again.

"I really like this," he says, and reaches toward Frank's wrist. He snatches his hand back a second later when he realizes that touching someone you just met thirty seconds ago is super creepy and forward. "What does it say?"

Frank just sticks his wrist under Gerard's nose and turns it. "I wish I... were a... ghost," Gerard reads out loud. He looks up at Frank. "That's kind of badass. I really like that it's red. You don't see a lot of red tattoos." He thinks for a second. "I mean, obviously there are a ton of tattoos with red _in_ them, but I mean... just red." He gets quieter as the sentence goes on, feeling like he's been talking for hours. When he finishes with, "It looks like it's written in blood. That's cool," it practically comes out in a whisper.

Frank doesn't seem to notice, or he's being really fucking nice. He just says, "Thanks!" brightly, and puts his pad down on the counter. Gerard looks around the restaurant. He's the only customer left. Frank and Tony seem to be the only ones working right now.

"Shit, how long have I been working?" Gerard mumbles to himself, looking for the clock.

"A while," Frank says, and Gerard looks at him, surprised. Had Frank been _paying attention_? Frank touches the sketchbook with the tip of a finger; there's chipped black polish on his nails. "What are you working on, anyway?"

Gerard drags his eyes away from Frank's fingers. "My portfolio. I want to be a comic artist."

Frank's face lights up. "Dude, that's amazing."

Tony comes out from the back then and says, "Hey, we're closing up for an hour so we can clean. Sorry, kid. We open up again at five."

Gerard does a double-take. "Holy shit — it's four already?" He shakes his head. "I've gotta tone down the coffee. I'm not even tired." He smiles sheepishly at Frank and slides ungracefully off of the stool, gathering up his things. He looks back before he heads out the door and smiles, feeling ridiculous and shy. "Bye, Frank. Nice to meet you."

Frank gives him a little wave and takes the mop that Tony is handing him. The bell over the door jingles as Gerard steps out into the moonlit night.

*****

Gerard walks into the diner just after midnight on a Friday and slides into his regular booth. He silently says hello to the green chip in the Formica, which yeah is kind of weird, but that's just how he rolls. Tony is at the grill, and Gerard smiles and nods when he calls over, "Hey Gerard. Want fries tonight?"

Frank comes out of the back office and looks over at Gerard's table right away. Gerard's smile gets wider and his cheeks feel oddly stretched from it. He realizes he hasn't smiled in a while. Fucking work. He nods hello to Jimmy Two-Cups, whose name is actually George, but it's way too late to shake the nickname now.

Frank puts a plate of fries on the table and slides into the booth across from him. He's wearing his apron and jeans with the knees torn out, and he's the best thing Gerard's ever seen. He works in New York City every damn day and he's never seen anyone even half as gorgeous as Frank. It's been two months since they met, and Gerard is just now able to look Frank full in the face when they talk.

"Hey, Gee." Frank grabs a fry and grins around it as he chews. It should probably be gross, but Gerard finds it adorable.

"Hey." Gerard smiles back, pulling his sketchbook out of his bag, along with a CD. "So, I. Um. Last night I just threw together some songs I like. I thought... you know, we've been talking about music so much, and...." He lets himself trail off and just hands the mix CD across the table.

"Nice. Thanks, dude." Frank reads through the list of songs on the back and then flips it over, grinning. His eyes go wide, and he looks up at Gerard. "Did you draw this? This is amazing."

Gerard knocks his fork off the table, and then bumps his head against the edge after retrieving it. "Ow. Seriously?" He rubs his forehead absently. "You think so? It's just. I like to make my own covers for my mixes, so I just..." — spent every night of the past week after work agonizing over choosing the songs and the track order and throwing out draft after draft of the cover art before he got it exactly right — "...made you one too."

Frank's smile is lighting up the entire section when Myra passes by with the coffee. "Frank, hon, you'd better get back there. Tony's been looking over here." She leans against the table and fills Gerard's cup even though he hadn't asked. "He's doing that thing with his forehead."

Frank gets up and starts to walk backwards away from the table. He holds out the CD towards Gerard. "I'm gonna go put this in the back with my stuff. You rule." He spins around and takes off down the back hallway.

Gerard gets started on his comic again and doesn't get to talk to Frank for the rest of the night, but when he picks up Mikey from the three a.m. train later that night, his first words are, "Hey, Mikey, guess what? I rule." Mikey just says, "duh," and messes up his hair, and Gerard doesn't stop smiling the entire way home.

*****

"So," Frank looks around the restaurant, which is really crowded for a Friday at two-thirty in the morning. It's so crowded that Frank should probably be working, but he'd sat down at Gerard's table ten minutes ago and stated that he was taking his break, dammit. "Who would you do?"

Gerard feels his heart rate pick up and starts to shred the paper napkin he's holding under the table. This is a game they play — well, _Frank_ plays — sometimes when there are a lot of customers around. They have to go around the restaurant and pick at least three people that they'd fuck. Gerard has only played once, and he'd stammered and sputtered and had finally sunk low enough to use his own hands to take up two spots on his list. Frank had loved that — he'd kept looking over at Gerard and cracking up until Gerard had headed out for the night with Frank's call of, "You three have fun tonight," following him out the door.

Tonight, there are plenty of candidates — there are five tables packed full of kids in leather and studs, shouting and laughing. It's been hard for Gerard to concentrate on work, so he's been working overtime on his creepy-staring skills, finding new and improved ways of using his hair as an opaque shield.

"Okay, fine, I'll go first," Frank says, sliding in the booth so his back is against the window and he's got a view of the whole place, "but we're alternating." He looks at the group of kids for a minute and then points at an older woman at the counter on the opposite side of the diner.

Gerard's eyebrows shoot up a bit, and Frank laughs. "Totally, dude. She could teach me some shit." He reaches for Gerard's coffee and takes a sip, making a face almost immediately. "Ugh, how do I always forget that you put shit in your coffee? Seriously, how can you drink it like this?"

Gerard takes the cup back. "Whatever, dude. It tastes awesome. How can you drink it black?" He looks around the diner. "Okay, I'm going to go with Punk Girl in the corner." He nods in the direction of the loud group of kids. She's quiet and withdrawn from the rest, drinking her coffee and watching the trucks drive by outside. Gerard wants to talk to her and find out why she's not laughing with her friends — why her makeup is smudged.

"Dude. You don't want to do her. You want to have a heart to fucking heart with her, don't you?" Frank's words are biting but his tone is fond, and he reaches over and chucks Gerard gently on the cheek. "You suck at this game, you know."

Gerard resists the urge to stick his tongue out at Frank and tries not to make it obvious how much he's reeling from Frank's one small touch. "Okay, fine," he says, his voice petulant. He looks back at the group of kids, and his eyes are drawn to the dude at the closest table. He's hot — black spiky hair, leather jacket, arm slung casually down the back of the booth. The girls on either side of him are obviously angling to get closer, and Gerard can understand why. "Okay, then I pick Punk Rock Elvis over there. Dude in the Rage t-shirt."

Frank's mouth drops open. He turns in the booth so that he's facing Gerard, his brows knit together. "So you _are_ into dudes?"

Gerard can feel his face heating up. His mouth was six steps ahead of his brain, as usual. "Uh. Yeah, I — yeah." 

Frank is quiet, just keeps looking at him. Gerard looks down automatically, avoiding his gaze, and then makes himself pick his head up.

"Huh." Frank's still studying him. "You spent all that time telling me about Jennifer." He smiles and shakes his head. "I just wasn't sure."

"Oh." Gerard's heart is beating faster now, and he makes himself look up at Frank. Something is definitely happening here. He just can't figure out why Frank seems so _defeated_ , until Punk Elvis walks up to their table and slides his arm around Frank's shoulders.

"Frankie, who's your friend?" His voice is imperious. Gerard rolls his eyes inwardly. He's one of those hot guys who knows exactly how good-looking he is. "You spent your whole break over here. Do I need to worry?"

Frank looks at Gerard, his face falling even further, and to Gerard's horror, he stands up and introduces Elvis to Gerard. His name is Drew, and he's Frank's boyfriend. Gerard shakes Drew's hand dumbly and tries to listen as Frank tells the story of how they met. Apparently their bands played the same show last week and they got to talking after, and that was that. And all Gerard wants to do is stick his entire head somewhere dark and deep and not come out for a month or so. Or ever. Maybe not ever.

He makes himself finish the conversation, and then Frank has to get back to work. Gerard gathers up his things — and, he thinks dramatically, because this situation calls for drama, the pieces of his crushed heart — and gets the fuck out of Dodge.

*****

Gerard pulls into the parking lot of the Blue Moon late on a Saturday afternoon and sits in the car for a full ten minutes before even taking off his seat belt or sliding his hands off the wheel. He hasn't been back for almost two months. There's always been an excellent excuse — Mikey needed a ride into the city, or he had to stay home and organize his art supplies, or there's a marathon of the Planet of the Apes movies and whatever, he's a completist.

He resolutely hasn't thought about Frank at all. Except maybe every couple hours or so. Or maybe late at night, sweaty hand shoved in his pants and shame not a part of his vocabulary, he's even thought of Frank _and_ Drew. Together. And then spent the entire next day feeling shitty because he has a _really good_ imagination but it's also apparently an asshole and is only going to show him things that make him come and then make him fucking miserable.

Mikey's with him today, and he's pretty much the best brother possible, because he sits in the car with Gerard for the entire time it takes him to get up the nerve to go inside. He talks about the awesome girl who came into the comics shop today and how they got into the whole Batman vs. Superman argument and seriously, nothing is better than Batman, right? Gerard is laughing and talking about the superiority of the Tim Burton Batman movies when they finally get out of the car and walk inside.

Gerard's eyes automatically go to his booth, but there's someone sitting there. The booth behind Alice is free, though, and he quickly scans behind the counter as they sit down. No Frank. He's not sure what he expected. This used to be Frank's shift, but it's been two months. Things change.

"Look who's back!" Dolores stops at the table and looks down at Gerard with a bright red smile. "We missed you around here, kiddo." Gerard and Mikey turn their coffee mugs right side up and she fills them. "Some of us more than others, I might add." She looks significantly at the space behind the counter, and Gerard's heart does a little leap.

"Tony misses my witty banter, right?" He tries for a joke, but he loses the attempt entirely when Frank comes out of the back hall, drying his hands on his apron. He doesn't see Gerard, and Gerard instinctively sinks down in the booth.

Dolores shakes her head at him and heads to another table. When Gerard looks back at Mikey, he's rolling his eyes. "Gee, for fuck's sake. You came here to see him."

Gerard grabs the sugar and upends it over his coffee cup. He watches as Frank moves down the counter, straightening the stacks of jelly packets and checking the sugar dispensers. He only comes back to reality when Mikey grabs his hand, spilling sugar all over the table.

"Hey," Gerard protests, setting the sugar back down on the table, where it crunches on the scattered crystals.

"Your coffee was like ninety percent sugar. I did you a favor," Mikey says, sounding bored. Gerard knows him enough to know that he isn't, though, and he shoots a little smile across the table. "Go. Talk. To. Him," Mikey says, slowly and clearly. He lowers his head a little but his eyes are on Gerard like daggers. "I am not joking. Remember when Jennifer broke up with you?"

Gerard nods slowly, not sure where this is going.

"Well, that was a fucking cakewalk compared to living with you the past couple months." Mikey settles back in the booth and looks over at Frank again, tracking his movements. "He's hot," he says simply, and then looks at Gerard again. "And more important, you like him. You're being so dumb. Even if he has an asshole boyfriend, you can still be friends, right?"

Gerard sighs, and it seems to take a really long time to get all the air out. His stomach is tied up in knots and he doesn't even know why he _came_ here tonight. Frank probably doesn't even remember him, and—

"Gerard?" The voice is sharp and familiar and cuts through all the bullshit like a knife through butter. Gerard looks over, and sure enough, Frank is standing behind the counter directly opposite their booth, and he's staring at Gerard.

Gerard looks back at him. He's good at staring. He has a lot of practice. Frank's eyes are darting between him and Mikey now, and his frown deepens. He doesn't take his eyes off their table, just calls out, "Taking my break, Tony," and walks around the counter.

"Hey, Frank," Gerard says quietly, when Frank is close enough to hear. Frank looks... he looks mad, which is unexpected. He'd thought that Frank might ignore him, that he might be too busy, that his glance would just slide over him like he was just another customer. But not this — not Frank with his forehead all bunched up in a frown and a hard set to his mouth.

Frank keeps looking over at Mikey, and then back at Gerard. Mikey looks back, expressionless, and after a few moments, Frank just says, "Gerard, can I talk to you out back for a second?"

Gerard's heart starts to hammer, and for a moment he thinks that he's about to get beat up. He's seen Frank when he's mad — when he'd chased a dude twice his size out of the diner for being drunk and harassing Dolores, or when some dumb kids had tried to sneak out without paying — Frank can be formidable, even though he's so short that _Gerard_ is taller than him. Gerard can count the number of dudes he knows who are shorter than him on one hand with three fingers missing.

Frank's mouth softens when he sees Gerard hesitating in the booth. "I seriously just want to talk." He glances at Mikey again. "Okay?"

Mikey raises his eyebrows and opens his hands in a "whatever, dude," sort of gesture. He pulls a rolled-up magazine out of his jacket pocket and picks up his coffee, blowing on it and ignoring Gerard and Frank completely.

Gerard gets up and follows Frank down the back hallway. Gerard's been back here, of course — it's where the bathrooms are — but Frank heads past those doors and into unknown staff territory. Gerard feels like he's seeing some sort of inner sanctum when they pass through a corner of the kitchen on their way to the back door. Frank bangs out the door but catches it with his foot before it closes in Gerard's face, holding it open until they're both outside.

They're behind the diner, and there are scrubby trees along the edge of the parking lot throwing long shadows in the afternoon sunlight. Gerard leans against the back wall of the building, the brick scratchy even through his t-shirt. He looks down at his boots, concentrating on the scuffs at the toes.

The click of a lighter and low crackling sound tells him that Frank's smoking. He kind of wants to ask for one, but he's too nervous to be the one who talks first. He hears Frank suck and blow the smoke a few times before finally looking up.

"Why were you gone so long?" Frank leans against the wall and turns toward Gerard. "Who's the guy you're with? Are you— Is he your boyfriend or something?" He sounds unsure of himself for the first time since Gerard has known him.

Gerard is shocked into looking Frank full in the face. He laughs and shakes his head emphatically. "No, dude. That's Mikey." Frank just looks at him blankly. "My brother," Gerard adds. "I thought I mentioned him. You know," he ducks his head again, laughter dying down, "before."

"Oh right. You did, sorry." Frank takes a drag of the cigarette and then gestures with it while he talks. "So why did you leave? Was it—” He hesitates, and then blows out a stream of smoke and finishes, "because of Drew?" He looks over at Gerard then, weirdly intense. "'Cause he's not around anymore."

Gerard stares at the broken TV lying on its side behind the dumpster, forcing himself not to express his utter joy that Punk Rock Elvis is out of the picture. "No. I mean. Sort of?" 

"Explain better, please." Frank toes a few rocks into a line and then kicks them across the parking lot. "I thought we were friends." He's frowning again, and Gerard's internal happy fists at hearing about Drew are totally subdued by the reminder that he'd hurt Frank's feelings.

"We are," Gerard rushes the words out, and they tumble over one another. "We were. Are. It was dumb. I was—” He cuts himself off and then balls up his fists, tells himself to be fucking brave for once. "I thought for a second— When we talked that time, and you seemed happy that I was into dudes, and I thought maybe—” He huffs out a breath, frustrated. He tries to look Frank in the eye, he does, but the best he can manage is the weird logo on Frank's t-shirt. It's a beer can with a face. "I liked you and I thought maybe you liked me too but then you had a boyfriend and I felt really stupid and my feelings were hurt and I do this thing sometimes where I live a little too much in my head and I wanted to come back but I started thinking that maybe I made it all up and you never liked me in the first place and I didn't want to watch you with some guy who's way hotter than me but seriously not good enough for you at _all_ and oh fuck seriously stop me you have to stop me or I will never sh—”

His stream of consciousness confessional is abruptly ended with the warm, soft press of Frank's mouth to his. He squeaks once in shock, because he can't process this at all, but once his brain catches up, he just thinks, "oh fuck _yes_ " and surges forward, turning them and pressing Frank back against the building, kissing him hard and dirty. Frank responds in kind, pulling Gerard closer, tilting his head and kissing deeper, tongue sliding against Gerard's.

Gerard feels like his brain is skipping like a record needle, only taking in every fifth thing. Frank's hand slides down Gerard's back to dip under the edge of his shirt and touch skin and Gerard shivers and smiles into the kiss. Frank pulls back just enough to whisper, "Is that okay?"

Gerard nods and keeps kissing Frank, punctuating his words with the heat of Frank's mouth on his. "Your hand was cold. It's fine now."

Frank grins, his teeth flashing in the twilight. They keep kissing, for so long that it's almost totally dark out by the time they break for a minute to catch their breath. Frank spreads his hand on Gerard's back, still under his shirt, and pulls him even closer. Gerard stumbles forward into the vee of Frank's legs, and oh, holy fuck. They're both so fucking hard. Just from this. Somehow feeling Frank's cock makes this hyper-real, and instead of thinking "seriously, is this actually _happening_?" he switches to an endless loop of shit like, "Frank wants you, you hotass motherfucker."

They're both breathing hard when they finally break apart. Frank pushes him about four inches back, keeps his hand splayed across Gerard's chest. Gerard looks down at it — blue nail polish this time — as Frank says, "Fuck. I have to go back to work." His voice is low and he sounds wound up as fuck and more than a little disappointed.

Gerard giggles and his eyes slide involuntarily down, where Frank's apron isn't hiding a whole lot. "Maybe we should wait a minute before we go back in." He looks down at himself, and yeah, his own cock is obvious, pressed against the zipper of his jeans. He reaches down and adjusts as subtly as possible, but when he looks up Frank is openly staring at his zipper so apparently the time for subtlety is past.

Subtlety is way overrated, anyway.

They can't seem to stop grinning stupidly at each other as they stand around in the deepening chill, talking about shit that's happened over the past months. Apparently Drew lasted about a week until Frank broke up with him due to an extreme case of Drew being a douchebag. Gerard gets about ten seconds of delight from this before he realizes that his dumb ass was the only thing that kept them apart for all that time.

He decides to forgive himself, though, when they're walking back down the hallway, and Frank slips his fingers into Gerard's back pocket, pulling him up and back and kissing the back of his neck.

Mikey's face is a hilarious combination of fond and smug when Gerard slides back into the booth across from him. He raises his eyebrows at Gerard.

"We're going on a date." Gerard smiles through the words, can't keep it down.

Mikey doesn't say anything, but he kicks Gerard gently under the table and his lip quirks up in a half-smile, and Gerard knows exactly what he means.

*****

Gerard looks over at Frank as he turns into the empty parking spot behind the diner next to Frank's ancient Dodge Dart. It's a little after two in the morning on a Friday night, and the parking lot is almost empty. Tony's car is the only other one in the lot. The halo of light that circles the pavement by the back door doesn't extend far enough to reach anywhere near them. The only light in the car comes from the dashboard, and when Gerard turns the car off, even that light is extinguished and it's nearly pitch black in the car.

It's quiet for a moment, and then Frank giggles, and the sound is so fucking sweet and bright that Gerard can't help laughing a little too.

"So," Frank says, and his voice seems lower and darker somehow. Gerard can barely see him in the dim, and he thinks of how they'd just spent the last twenty minutes of the movie making out in the back row. His heart speeds up just remembering Frank's hot mouth and wandering hands. God, his _hands_. He's pretty sure that Frank would've just taken Gerard's cock out and jerked him off right there in the theatre if the movie hadn't ended, forcing them apart abruptly as they tried to look innocent and calm their breathing.

"So." Gerard replies, and there's another few seconds of silence.

"So." Frank says again. Gerard can see the outline of Frank's face turned toward him in the dark, and finally he just thinks, _fuck it_ , and surges forward, fumbling for Frank, finding his mouth.

Frank breaks away long enough to breathe, "oh thank _fuck_ ," and then he's kissing Gerard again, and it's like — Gerard can't even explain it to himself — it's like they've spent their whole lives waiting for kisses like this. Like neither one of them has ever done this before — like they're twelve and getting their first awkward boner out behind the school after a dance. Not that Gerard ever went to the school dances. But he imagines. Did imagine. Whatever.

Frank pulls back a little, and Gerard can see his eyes shining in the low light as he says, "Still with me?" He laughs, one hand sliding down Gerard's chest, slowing enough to graze a nipple through the threadbare t-shirt Gerard is wearing. Gerard sucks in a sharp breath, and Frank doesn't take his eyes off Gerard's face as his hand keeps slipping lower and lower. When he gets to Gerard's belly, he smiles wider and slides his hand around the side of Gerard's waist, squeezing a little.

Gerard ducks his head, automatically sucking his stomach in, but Frank shakes his head and slips his fingers up under Gerard's shirt. Frank leans forward then, and Gerard can feel his breath hot against his ear as Frank says, "I like it," and then gently bites Gerard's neck, kissing down to his collarbone and pulling Gerard closer, as much as he can with the armrests and gear shift between them. "I like _you_." Gerard tries to press closer to Frank — to touch him, to tell him how he feels, something, anything — and he makes a decidedly unsexy noise when his knee bone grinds up against the console.

He pulls back, and his skin feels so cold where Frank had been touching him.

"What?" Frank sounds distracted and breathy, and Gerard just stops for a moment to relish the fact that he made Frank sound like that. "What's wrong? Are you—”

Gerard cuts him off, not sure he wants to know what Frank is going to say. "No, I was just going to say. Um." He stops, and Jesus fuck, is there ever a time when he's not going to be goddamn Sir Pause-A-Lot when he's around Frank? "Do you maybe want to move to the backseat because I think it'd be more comfortable and there's no fucking armrest or shift thing and—” He stops then, because Frank's already scrambling over the armrest and tumbling into the backseat, kneeing Gerard in the chest and almost kicking him in the face as he goes.

Gerard recovers from his near-kick experience and quickly evaluates the space between the seats and his own flexibility. He grins and shakes his head and then gets out of the car. It feels like the trip from the driver door to the back door is really long. Like, not Shire-to-Mordor long, but it feels like it takes fucking forever for him to walk the few steps. But then he's in the back and the doors are closed, and Frank's pressing him down into the seat, laughing and kissing him in the dark.

"You have the best ideas," he whispers, and then rucks up Gerard's t-shirt enough to suck a nipple into his mouth, which feels like it's a million degrees after the cool night air.

"Jesus," Gerard gasps and slides his hand through Frank's hair, which is brown now, and cropped short — just enough length to hold onto. Frank spends some time kissing Gerard's belly, and Gerard tries hard not to suck it in. He's not built, by any stretch of the imagination, but Frank truly does seem to like it, sucking kisses into the soft skin and biting his sides, scraping his teeth along the smooth, wet skin.

Gerard is so hard that it hurts a little, and he starts to snake his hand down to unzip, but Frank beats him to it. Gerard sees a flash of a wicked grin in the dark, and then closes his eyes because Frank's got his pants open and is pulling Gerard's cock out. It's cool in the car but Frank's hand is hot, and oh holy fuck, his mouth is even hotter.

Gerard's head is pressed awkwardly against the hard plastic of the car door and his neck is starting to ache a little, and he doesn't give a _fuck_. He just keeps his eyes closed, one arm splayed across his forehead like a maiden in distress. He'd love to watch this — fuck but he'd love to — but he can't see Frank in the dark, and this way, with his eyes closed, he can just _feel_ it. He feels like he's fucking floating, sees starbursts behind his eyelids, and Frank takes his cock like he was fucking born to do it, like his mouth was made for this — just this.

He's making little noises around Gerard's dick, humming a little sometimes — and one memorable time, moaning after Gerard forgot himself and thrust up a little too much. It's overwhelming — the heat and the slick softness surrounding him, Frank's tongue sliding over the head of his cock — Gerard can't help making noise, and it's loud in the quiet car. His breath is deafening in his ears, and he's so fucking— he's close, he's just—

"Oh fuck, Frank. Fuck. I'm gonna—” And Frank slides up and off like it was choreographed that way, deftly replacing his mouth with his hand, slick with spit, stroking Gerard quick and tight, and Gerard feels like it rushes up through a fucking fog, breaks over him and he feels it fucking everywhere when he comes — up and down his spine, in his pinkies, his ears, his goddamn knees.

Gerard grabs Frank by his t-shirt and hauls him bodily up so that he's got a knee on the seat between Gerard's legs and the rest of his body pressed against Gerard, smearing come between them, Frank's shirt rucked all the way up, one nipple showing. Gerard kisses him deep and slick, and mumbles around the kiss, "Do you need me to— I wanna—”

Frank is already grinding against Gerard's thigh as they kiss, and Gerard can feel the hard length of him through their jeans. Gerard just keeps kissing Frank, dips down to suck a kiss into his neck, tastes his sweat, and God, Gerard is this weird combination of satiated and sparking — Frank is so caught up and close, and if he could, Gerard would be hard and ready all over again. He can't remember the last time he felt this way, and he hasn't even touched Frank's cock yet.

Frank sucks in a breath and goes still, gasping, "Fuck yeah, _yeah_ ," and then collapses his full weight onto Gerard, panting into Gerard's neck.

"Oof," Gerard mumbles, laughing lightly, and then he can't stop fucking talking at all. "Oh my God, you're so hot. Jesus, Frank. You're so goddamn good at that." He shrugs his arm out from where it's wedged between Frank and the seat cushion and throws it across Frank's back, still laughing.

"What's with you?" Frank tries to lift his head but ends up awkwardly craning his neck to look at Gerard.

"I don't know." Gerard feels lazy and fucked out and just... "I feel really fucking good, Frank." He settles back, moving Frank to a more comfortable position. "Like I'm drunk, but I'm not drunk."

Frank giggles. "You're high on my dick right now, aren't you?"

"Yes. Fuck yes," Gerard replies right away. "Well, wait, no. Actually I guess it's your mouth." Frank laughs and licks him. Gerard snorts and shoves his head away with his chin. "Your dick stayed under wraps." He meant it as a joke, but he's surprised by how pouty he sounds.

Frank heaves himself up and straightens his clothes. "Next time," he says, and it sounds like a promise. Gerard smiles, sitting up on his elbows, and a second later he sees the answering white flash of Frank's in the dark.

*****

"Hey, hey Mikey, have you met my boyfriend Frank?" Gerard feels stupid and giddy and he doesn't even care. "This is my boyfriend Frank." He nods toward Frank and pulls his sketchbook out of his bag. He catches Myra's eye, holding up his coffee cup with a huge smile.

Mikey just looks at Gerard blankly, and Frank shoves him over in the booth and sits down, grinning at them both. "Nice to meet you, Mikeyway."

Mikey shoves him back, but scoots over a few inches, rolling his eyes. "Every time, Gerard? Really? You guys have been dating for months. I've seen Frank a million times. I walked in on you guys fucking earlier this _morning_."

Frank collapses, cracking up, but Gerard can see that the tips of his ears are flushed red, and he can feel that his own face is too. "Whatever," Gerard says, holding out his cup when Myra stops by, and turning over Mikey's as well, feeling extremely magnanimous.

Once Myra leaves, Frank lifts his head from the table and looks over at Mikey. "We weren't technically fucking." Mikey's eyes widen and he claps his hands over his ears. Frank winks at Gerard. "It was a fucking phenomenal blowjob, to be technically accurate."

Gerard is torn between renewed humiliation at the memory of Mikey's horrified face and the door slamming shut, and a quick shot of pleasure at the compliment. He grins at Frank and gestures to Mikey to uncover his ears.

"It's okay, Mikes. It's over." He gives Mikey a look that's a complex combination of "I'm sorry," and "Oh please, like I haven't walked in on _you_ seven million times." Mikey quirks up a corner of his mouth and takes a sip of his coffee.

*****

Frank blasts through the door of the diner and lets it slam closed behind him. Gerard looks up with a ready grin, but Frank doesn't even glance at his table — he just heads straight to the back office, where Gerard knows he's stashing his coat and grabbing a new apron. Gerard can't stop staring at the set of his shoulders as he goes. He's stiff, and it's such a marked difference from his usual slouchy stance that Gerard frowns down at his sketchbook as he goes back to work.

He's trying to finish writing and storyboarding a pivotal scene, but he keeps getting distracted by Frank. Gerard watches him move behind the counter, wiping it down and collecting dirty dishes, just like he always does, but tonight his face is set in a near-frown, and the muscles along his jaw are tense.

Gerard has seen Frank angry before — he usually just explodes with it and the flame burns out quickly, but after several hours there's no change. Finally, when Frank slams the dirty plates he's carrying into the dishpan so hard that Gerard can hear a resounding crack all the way across the restaurant, Gerard gets up and nods to Alice. "Watch my stuff for a minute?" She looks up slowly and eventually nods, even smiles a little. Gerard nods back. "Thanks."

He heads toward Frank, who is just standing by the dishpan, his hands tight around the edges like he's about to lift it, but he doesn't move. The back of his neck is flushed, and Gerard comes up behind him and rests his hands gently on Frank's waist. Frank twitches a little, but doesn't pull away.

"Hey," Gerard says in a low voice, his mouth next to Frank's ear. "Come have a smoke with me?"

Frank just stands there for a minute but he finally lets Gerard guide him away from the dishes and down the back hallway. When they pass the office, Gerard knocks briefly and leans in to say, "Tony, Frank's taking his break." Tony looks up and nods, and Gerard keeps pushing Frank down the hall and out the back door.

When they get outside, Frank starts pacing, shaking a cigarette out of the pack in his jeans pocket. While he lights it, Gerard hems Frank in with his body, herds him towards the wall like a sheepdog. Finally Frank stops pacing and just leans against the brick, his eyebrows knit together, looking past Gerard and smoking aggressively, one hand jammed in his pocket.

Gerard is quiet. He wants to wait it out, let Frank talk to him. He grabs the cigarette from Frank's hand and takes a drag before it's gone. When he does, Frank seems at a loss. He has nothing to do with his hands, and Gerard sees them ball up into fists at his sides.

"Frank." Gerard steps closer and hands the cigarette back. "What's going on?"

Frank stares down at the rocks at his feet, looking for all the world like they've personally offended him. He's quiet again, for such a long time that Gerard opens his mouth to ask again, but Frank finally starts talking.

"We broke up," he says, and spits on the ground. Gerard's brain is reeling, because Frank is talking about breakups and at first, for a moment, he thinks that Frank is talking about them. Not to mention that Frank definitely just said something negative and then spit like Gerard's Italian grandfather used to do, which is really fucking trippy.

Gerard waits a moment longer to see if Frank is going to elaborate, but he's already fishing the pack of Camel Lights out of his pocket again and is back to staring at something over Gerard's shoulder.

"Who did?" Gerard finally asks, his voice quiet. Frank doesn't respond, but then he realizes. "Oh shit, Frank. You mean Pencey?"

Frank's renewed frown and aggressive flick of the lighter are pretty much all the answer that Gerard needs, and his heart sinks. Pencey Prep is Frank's fucking _life_. This diner job just makes him enough to afford rent and food so he can put everything he has into his band. And they're good — really good. Gerard's been to enough of their shows, a fierce, electric pride running through him as he'd watched Frank whirl and scream onstage.

"Oh, fuck, baby." Gerard steps closer, and Frank drops his cigarette. He just lets it lie where it falls, and Gerard sees his shoulders slump. "I'm so sorry."

"They just." Frank finally leans forward and plants his forehead on Gerard's chest, resting his hands on Gerard's hips. "They decided. They decided that they couldn't do it anymore. And now what the fuck do I do? I have fucking _nothing_." He sounds small and broken, and Gerard's never seen him like this.

He rests his hand on the back of Frank's neck. "You have me," he replies, his voice small but sure. "And Mikey." Frank lets out a long breath and eventually steps back enough to look up at Gerard.

"I know." And he does, Gerard can tell. It's a certainty, resting solid and warm in his chest. Frank leans up a little and kisses him then, and it isn't about passion and heat — it's just warm, and soft, and fucking right. Frank breaks the kiss gently and then buries his face in Gerard's shoulder, pulling him into a hug. His voice is muffled, but Gerard can clearly make it out when Frank says, "Thank fucking God."

Gerard just holds on tight, and they stand there, swaying slightly in the chilly night air, until Frank is ready to go back to work.

*****

It's four-fifteen a.m. on a Sunday, and Gerard and Frank are alone at the diner. The restaurant is closed for nightly cleanup and Gerard is helping Frank wipe down the tables, listening to Frank hum to himself while he works on the other side of the room. It's been almost three weeks since Pencey broke up, and it's taken time, but Frank is finally acting like himself again. He's been playing guitar, and he's already talking about starting a new band.

Gerard hasn't said anything about it to Frank yet, but he's been thinking a lot about music too, these days. Half the pages in his sketchbook are covered with hastily hand-written song lyrics, and Mikey's been practicing his bass again. He doesn't know where it's all headed yet, but he's excited about this, and fuck, he's just going to ride that out and see.

Tony's gone home for the night, leaving Frank to clean up and re-open at five. Frank and Gerard are spending fifteen frantic minutes mopping the floor and wiping things down so they can spend the next forty-five making out. As soon as they finish, Frank pulls Gerard into Tony's office and slams him up against the inside of the door, kissing him like he needs Gerard's mouth to fucking breathe. It's been almost five months now, and Gerard doesn't think this will ever get old. Frank's mouth still gets him hard in minutes, leaves him aching and wanting more.

There's a brown corduroy couch in the corner that looks like it's been there for thirty years or so, and Gerard has been thinking about it for the past four hours while he sat in his booth and tried to write. He'd ended up flipping to a clean page in his book and drawing Frank on the couch in Tony's office, working from memory — the last time he'd been inside was last month when had Frank tugged him in there during a break and pushed him up against the wall. Frank had rutted up against him desperately, telling Gerard everything he wanted to do to him in a rough whisper until they both came in their pants, biting their lips to stay quiet. Frank had stepped back then, breathless and sweaty, and made a face as he shifted his hips. "Fuck, I really didn't think this through." 

Gerard had just laughed and kissed him and gone home to get them both a change of clothes.

He's spent the past hour daydreaming about Frank splayed out on that ugly brown couch, writhing and arching underneath him, and fuck if he isn't going to make that happen as soon as fucking possible. Right now, though — right now Frank's got his arms braced on the door, hemming Gerard in, and they're kissing, kissing, kissing — that kind of kissing where you don't stop to breathe, you don't stop for anything.

Gerard spares a second to feel around for the lock and turn it until it clicks, and then he pulls Frank's shirt up and off in one swift motion and swings back in to kiss him again. He works on untying Frank's apron strings, but of fucking course they're in a goddamn Gordian knot. Gerard makes a little frustrated whine when he can't undo it, and Frank pulls back about three inches and looks down, laughing a little.

"We could leave it on?" he says, breathless. He pulls up the apron and starts unbuckling his belt, letting the weight of it drag his jeans to the floor. Gerard sucks in a breath and his dick twitches in his pants when he sees that Frank is naked under his jeans. Frank drops the apron again, and they both crack up, watching his cock hold up the white cotton.

"You look ridiculous," Gerard says, sticking two fingers into the taut strings and pulling Frank closer. He slides his hands around to Frank's ass, still amazed after all this time that he just gets to do that.

Frank murmurs, "Yeah," pressing his face into Gerard's neck and moving to unbuckle his belt.

They're still kissing, but it's lazy now, quiet, like they have all the time in the world. Which they don't, actually. Gerard glances at the clock, and when he checks back into the kiss, Frank breaks it and steps back, hands on his hips, that stupid apron still on, but slung lower now, dragged down by Gerard's eager hands. Gerard can see Frank's pubes peeking out and he can't even try to keep a straight face. "You're still hot," he says, grabbing Frank and pulling him over to the desk, "but I can't fuck you like this." Not for their first time.

He opens a couple drawers until he finds the scissors and holds them up, triumphant. Frank dances away from him immediately. "Stay the fuck away from me with those, motherfucker. I'm not gonna let you Sweeney Todd my dick." He reaches out and grabs them from Gerard, cuts the apron strings, and tosses the scissors back into the open drawer. Then he turns and flings himself onto the couch, naked, leaving the apron crumpled on the floor.

"Someone said you were gonna fuck me," he says with a wicked grin. He does that finger-crooking thing that they always do in movies but Gerard has never seen an actual person do in real life, but before Gerard can move Frank springs up and grabs the fleece blanket that's folded on the arm of the couch. He spreads it out over the cushions and then jumps back on, a jumble of skin and dick and spiky hair and tattoos.

Gerard shuffles over — he'd never made it all the way out of his pants — and shoves his jeans and briefs down where he stands. He folds himself awkwardly down on the couch, half on top of Frank and half smushed into the cushion.

"Are you sure?" He sucks Frank's nipple for a moment, and Frank arches back into the couch. "You wanna do it here?"

"Fuck yes." Frank's face is open and his eyes are dark.

It's a totally disarming combination, and Gerard doesn't understand why he'd stopped kissing Frank. He's really not sure why he ever stops kissing Frank, to be honest.

"See this hideous brown couch?" Frank smacks the corduroy next to Gerard. "Do me on it."

Gerard snorts. "I don't know. The mood isn't really right." He's joking, mostly, but really he's kind of not. The way he feels about Frank is more than this — more than a cluttered back room in a tiny diner in Jersey. Gerard wants to fuck Frank in a field of poppies and come all over the crushed petals. He wants to fuck him in a black velvet room, wants him in _space_ , up against a window with the stars everywhere.

Frank snaps his fingers. "Hey — eyes on me. Cock down there." He pokes Gerard in the belly, and Gerard throws up his hands to defend against the attack. "Oh my God, you were daydreaming about fucking me, weren't you?" Frank laughs and wraps his bare legs around Gerard, pulling him in and groaning low when his cock slides up against Gerard's. "You could _actually be fucking me_." He relaxes his legs suddenly and goes limp under Gerard. "Oh fuck." Gerard can actually feel him deflate. "Fuck. Gerard, there's no lube."

Gerard grins down at him and slides halfway off the couch, grabbing his pants with the very tips of his fingers. "I got it covered," he grins, pulling a little plastic tube out of his pocket.

Frank stares at him. "But. We just decided to have sex like five minutes ago. How did you—” he trails off, and Gerard laughs, ducking his head.

Gerard feels the flush rise in his cheeks and rolls his eyes. "It's good to be prepared, okay?" 

Frank giggles and hooks an arm around Gerard's neck, his legs snaking back to pin Gerard to him. He leans up and breathes his words hot into Gerard's ear, sending an electric shiver through Gerard's chest and straight to his dick. "Fuck me, okay? Please." The want in his voice shocks Gerard into moving, and he arches back, sitting up long enough to get rid of his t-shirt.

Frank slowly strokes himself back to full hardness, his bottom lip in his teeth as he watches Gerard. Frank's words had changed the atmosphere in the room so completely that Gerard's still reeling from it a little. He's hard again, and it feels like they've been here for hours, winding each other up and then stepping back, and he's so fucking ready for this that he can barely think.

He gets his mouth on Frank's cock, not teasing at all, just taking him deep until the head hits the back of his throat, holding it there and swallowing around him before sliding back up. He does it over and over until Frank is shaking and gasping under him. Gerard closes his eyes and just gets lost in it until he feels Frank's fingers in his hair, pulling him up and off. 

Gerard focuses back on Frank's face. Frank's eyes are a little wild and he's breathing so fucking hard. "I don't—” His breath catches. "Don't wanna come yet."

Gerard nods and reaches for the lube. He fingers Frank slowly, not stretching, just fucking him with his fingers until Frank's pushing against him with each thrust in. He loves this — loves getting to watch Frank, to touch him like this — loves to be turned on, but just enough removed that he can really _watch_.

"Fuck, Gerard." Frank's voice is thick and throaty when he speaks, and he pulls away a little, lying back with one hand curled around his cock. "Come on. I'm ready." Gerard wipes his fingers absently on the blanket and just looks at Frank, spread out naked and hard for him, still as impatient as ever.

Frank watches him while Gerard rolls on the condom and then strokes himself slowly with a slick hand, thinking about what position will work best. Finally Frank makes a little noise and mutters, "Seriously," and just grabs Gerard and shoves him down on his back. He kneels closer, straddling Gerard, and — without any fanfare at all, Gerard thinks incredulously — sinks slowly down on his cock.

"Oh," Gerard says, and a part of him, back in some remote corner of his brain, is embarrassed by how breathy his voice sounds. But most of him is just thinking, "oh God, fuck yes," and since Frank seems to have erased Gerard's filter the second he sat on Gerard's dick, that's exactly what he says.

Frank's moving slowly, and Gerard can feel him sliding along every goddamn inch. It's hot and so fucking tight. You always think you understand how close it's going to feel — how tight, and then it's a surprise every time.

He lies there under Frank, watching his boyfriend fuck him — because there's no mistake here, Frank's calling all of these shots — feeling him everywhere even though he can name every tiny point of contact. His brain feels foggy and sharp all at once, and Frank rides him until he's got a rhythm going, Gerard finally getting with the program and holding tight to Frank's hips, fingers pressed into the flesh, thrusting up on Frank's downstrokes.

Gerard feels like Frank's taking his virginity — he's taking what he _wants_ , and there is nothing hotter than that right now. The first time Gerard thrusts up inside him, so fucking deep, Frank lets out this low, broken moan. It's the kind of sex noise that they're always pretending to make in porn but never ever get right. Gerard wants to spend all of his time from now on trying to make Frank do that again. And again. And again.

Gerard is just babbling now — telling Frank everything that runs through his mind, things he'd never be brave enough to say in real life. Apparently he just needed this to end his shyness — to have Frank above him, fucking himself on Gerard, his hard cock lying flat against his belly, dragging through precome and sweat as he moves.

Frank leans back, sinks all the way down on Gerard's cock and just stays there, moving his hips in tight circles, and just like that Gerard is gasping and breathless — there is no breath left — no air in the fucking room — nothing anywhere in the world but this.

"Yeah," Frank grits out, and he doesn't stop moving, "fuck yeah, come on," and Gerard does. He grabs Frank's hips, pulls him down and holds him as he comes inside Frank, comes so hard that the room starts to fade out a little.

Gerard's logy and slow, but he wants — he needs Frank to come. But Frank has fucking _got_ this, and he pulls off and kneels back over Gerard, his left hand braced on Gerard's splayed knee, back arched, sweat shining on his neck. Gerard slides a hand up Frank's taut thigh and just watches, mesmerized, as Frank strokes himself faster and faster, concentrating on the head, his cock flushed red and slick, and finally cries out and comes in thick stripes, all over Gerard's softening cock.

When Frank collapses on top of him a moment later, he kisses Gerard's neck and whispers, "God, fuck. Love you. I love you," and Gerard freezes. He knows Frank can feel it too. Like, he can actually _feel_ his body going stiff everywhere it's pressed up against Frank. Which is ridiculous, because it's the exact opposite of what his heart is doing. His fucking heart is doing shit that he couldn't have pulled off in 10th grade gymnastics if his life had depended on it.

Everything in his head is screaming at him to say it back. Just say it back. He's thought about this, had all kinds of stupid romantic fantasies, but in his fantasies he was never lying in a mess of sweat and come, naked in the back room of a diner on an ugly couch that's older than he is.

Somehow declarations of love were easier to understand in his fantasies. All Gerard can feel right now is fear. He'd thought he was in love with Jennifer, and look how that had turned out. He's just that kind of guy. He loves hard and with his whole self. He falls fast and he gets hurt — so fucking hurt. And he's never felt with anyone the way he feels about Frank.

He opens his mouth. He has to say something. By this point Frank is sitting up, propped on an elbow, and is looking at him with — oh God — this hurt, confused expression. But as soon as Gerard sees it there, it's gone, replaced with a closed-off, guarded.

Gerard takes a breath and says, "I—” and then pauses. And Frank is about to say something, possibly wave it off, pretend it hadn't happened. "—quit my job."

Frank does a double take and just looks at him, his expression shifting subtly from hopeful to disappointed and finally just shocked. "What? You _did_? Holy shit, Gerard. That's huge." He sits up straight, grabbing Gerard's arm and squeezing once, smiling. "We've been talking about this for fucking months. I can't believe you did it. I'm so fucking proud of you."

He pulls Gerard into a sticky hug, but all Gerard can think about is that Frank had said I love you for the first time, and Gerard hadn't said it back. And now the moment was gone, swept away in Frank's excited questions about his comic and the creative _work_ he can do, now that he's not living the nine-to-five anymore. They clean themselves up as best they can with the blanket, and Gerard balls it up under his arm after they get dressed. Frank's excited patter fades, and they're left just standing there together in Tony's office.

"So." Gerard feels awkward, and he fucking hates it, because it's all his fucking fault. "I should probably get home." He unlocks the door and then hesitates, turns and gives Frank a swift kiss. "See you soon, okay?"

He leaves the office door open behind him and tries, but totally fails, to forget the look on Frank's face the whole way home.

*****

Gerard stays away for two days, which he spends holed up in his room listening to The Smiths and chain smoking. Finally this morning Mikey had come in and sat down on the bed next to him.

Mikey had been quiet for a while, and Gerard had finally broken the silence. "I'm such a fucking idiot, Mikey." Mikey hadn't said anything, just bumped his shoulder against Gerard's. "But. I'm scared. Remember what happened when fucking Jennifer dumped me."

"Jennifer," Mikey had said, a little incredulous, "When's the last time you even thought about _Jennifer_?"

Gerard had frowned and replied immediately, "Um, all the time?" Even as he'd said it, though, he'd realized that it wasn't true at all.

Mikey had raised an eyebrow. "You never talk about her. Not ever. Not since Frank." He'd looked at Gerard. "You love him."

Gerard had shaken his head as though that wasn't the issue at all and said, "Of course I do, but—” He'd stopped then, letting it sink in, that it was that automatic — just a fact, like "the sky is blue" or "Han shot first."

"Then what the fuck are you waiting for?" Mikey had shoved him a little, and Gerard had just flopped back into place. "Go fucking tell him that. And air this room out. And take a shower before you go. I could smell you from upstairs."

It's after ten p.m when he finally walks into the Blue Moon, freshly showered and wearing his favorite Maiden t-shirt for good luck. He lets the door clink closed behind him and scans the restaurant. It's pretty empty, but Frank is there, cleaning the table next to Alice's.

Gerard watches him for a minute, until Frank looks up and sees him standing there. Frank turns to face him as Gerard walks straight up to him and then stops, fighting the desire to fidget. He tries to keep his voice from shaking and just says, "Hey, Frank."

Frank's mouth turns up in a grin, and it's like a shot of bravery direct to Gerard's heart. He slides a hand around the back of Frank's neck and presses their foreheads together.

"I love you. I'm sorry," he says, and then stops and takes a breath. "I love you." He says it again, and his voice is steady and sure.

Alice looks up at them and says, "It's about goddamn time. Frankie's been moping for days." She smiles at them both and then ducks her head and concentrates on her cereal. 

Frank hugs Gerard, squeezing way too tight for a second. "I'm glad you came back," he says quietly and smiles, looking oddly shy.

"I'm glad you _took_ me back," Gerard replies, his arm around Frank's waist. His hand is resting against the wet cleaning rag in Frank's pocket, but he doesn't care at all. He swings them around, heading towards his table, and then stops short. There's a hand-written sign on the table that says "Reserved." There's a little drawing of a ghost in the corner — the one Frank always doodles in the inside cover of Gerard's sketchbook when he thinks Gerard isn't looking.

"What—” Gerard starts, but Frank cuts him off. "I thought you'd come back." He shrugs, grinning over at Gerard, his face bright. "I hoped you would. So I saved your place."

Gerard shakes his head, his heart pounding, and pulls Frank close and kisses him, all movie-kiss hard and deep and serious. When they finally break apart, flushed and breathless, he sits down at his table, pulling Frank into the bench seat with him. Gerard can't stop kissing him and he kind of doesn't want to. Ever.

"This is inappropriate diner behavior, you know," Frank mumbles between kisses. "It's my workplace."

"Don't care," Gerard replies.

"I could get fired," Frank pulls back a bit and looks at Gerard, his eyes huge and filled with mock concern.

"Tony's watching us," Gerard says, laughing. "He's rolling his eyes, but he's not doing that thing with his forehead. I think that means he's cool."

"It means," Frank says darkly, still kissing Gerard after every third word, "that he's going to make me clean the grease traps for the next year."

"Mmm," Gerard hums, pulling Frank closer and kissing his neck.

"Fuck you." Frank makes a happy noise. "Fine, it’s worth it, okay? Ugh, I admit it. You're fucking worth it."

Gerard laughs into the kiss, settles back into the booth and lets the sounds of the diner swirl around them and fade away, until nothing's left but Frank's mouth on his and the strong, steady beat of Frank's heart against his chest.

 

The End


End file.
